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What if a station targeted a *really* old audience?

seatownmedia said:
Good for you. But I will repeat skill set has changed. You need website ability, an ability to combine all media toward your product, and think outside of the radio box. Very few jocks can do this.
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In the current environment, you need website ability, an understanding of social media presence, the ability to cover multiple shifts on multiple stations, schedule music for multiple stations, do marketing and promotions for multiple stations, and track some weekend shifts before you get in your car and drive Uber/Lyft to make some extra money on the side.

That last bit seems like a joke, but it's not. The last place where I worked, we had a guy who was the mid-day jock/APD/MD/Digital Program Director/Digital Content Producer/Web Guy and on weekends (after he got done tracking his shifts) drove a rideshare because he wasn't quite able to make ends meet. This was a top 20 market.

Then he got laid off because he just wasn't valuable to the company anymore.
 
Kelly A said:
Exactly. Why the former RD is frequently used by folks on this board as some kind of benchmark, is beyond me.
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Because it was actively supported and funded by one of the largest entertainment and broadcasting corporations, and stayed on the air nationally for 25 years? It's something.

The closest present day operation I can think of is BIN. Corporate backed, corporate funded, not dependent on ratings. But still is run by people who know radio, as a lot of the content is fairly compelling. Not getting big ratings, though.
 
boombox4 said:
Because it was actively supported and funded by one of the largest entertainment and broadcasting corporations, and stayed on the air nationally for 25 years? It's something.
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But not for the reasons people here believe. They believe because it's on the air, it was successful. As a radio group, it wasn't.
boombox4 said:
The closest present day operation I can think of is BIN. Corporate backed, corporate funded, not dependent on ratings. But still is run by people who know radio, as a lot of the content is fairly compelling. Not getting big ratings, though.
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And it may likely fade into obscurity like RD. No organization can fund a money pit forever. Eventually when the economy becomes challenged, or some private equity group buys the company, the first thing they look at is cutting fat.
I'm done with talking about stupid Radio Disney. It's been gone for a while now. Time to let it Rest In Pieces.
 
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Kelly A said:
And it may likely fade into obscurity like RD. No organization can fund a money pit forever. Eventually when the economy becomes challenged, or some private equity group buys the company, the first thing they look at is cutting fat.
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Perhaps new owners would cut it. But then again, maybe not. The reason BIN was put on the air was PR, and it provided other corporations ability to state that they back African American causes, and back diversity in radio broadcasting. PR can have a lot of power for a massive corporation. Boeing, for example, periodically puts up billboards in the Seattle area. They pay a fair amount to have those billboards up for months at a time.

They're not advertising to people who are going to buy planes. No commuter I know is in the market to buy a 737Max. It's PR, probably aimed at Washington state voters, to give them a more beneficial view of the corporation's activities in the state.
 
boombox4 said:
Because it was actively supported and funded by one of the largest entertainment and broadcasting corporations, and stayed on the air nationally for 25 years? It's something.
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But it was not either a non-profit or a traditional spots and programs commercial station. It was a brand enhancement effort by Disney; the whole station was an ad for Disney . In a sense, it was like the earliest stations that were intended to promote the sales of radios, insurance and newspapers depending on the owner... in this case, an entertainment company.
boombox4 said:
The closest present day operation I can think of is BIN. Corporate backed, corporate funded, not dependent on ratings. But still is run by people who know radio, as a lot of the content is fairly compelling. Not getting big ratings, though.
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BIN is an effort to capitalize on a current socio-political issue while giving its owner "points" among those served and activists. Disney was advertising its brand.
 
seatownmedia said:
Good for you. But I will repeat skill set has changed. You need website ability, an ability to combine all media toward your product, and think outside of the radio box. Very few jocks can do this.
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Trust me Paul does it all... it kind of makes up for him not having a "great set of pipes", but as a 1 man operation keeping a radio station on the air in the middle of nowhere ( there are no roads to take you where he is) , the only thing he can't do is pass the Ham radio license test.

God I miss the days of being able to weed people out because they could not pass the Element 9 Endorsement
 
seatownmedia said:
Oh yeah the Jewel! I loved that station. They simply ignored what radio consultants said and just played their interesting playlist. It was inventive, perhaps by accident, but just golden radio in my mind!
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I live in Las Vegas and I listen to KJUL 104.7 most of the time. I have it playing on a radio at home and it’s usually on when I’m in the car by myself.
They almost went off the air last year. They went silent for just shy of a month. Then came back with an updated playlist without Barry Manilow, Neil Diamond, Carpenters, Andy Williams, etc. They still don’t play very many songs from this millennium which I like. Only one or two songs an hour from post-2000. They play the soft AC hits mainly of the 80s and 90s with some 70s.

Kool 102.3 is owned by the same owner as KJUL. They’re an oldies station playing mainly 60s and 70s with some 50s and 80s.

There’s another station in Vegas which targets an even older audience: KIYQ 107.1. There you’ll hear the standards and the artists that made Las Vegas famous like Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Tom Jones, etc. Music that KJUL used to play. I’d say that they target the 70+ demographic. It’s an LPFM so the owner is running it as a labor of love. Unfortunately their audience is literally dying off and I can’t see many people listening to it 10 years from now.

Edit: As I was posting this, I just heard a song by the Carpenters on KJUL.
 
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TheBigA said:
I think very few jocks know how to entertain. Here's a question: How many DJs do you know who could get people to pay for a ticket to see them do their schtick in a club?
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Fortunately, the reverse is also false. Listeners do not want one liners from a recent Netflix comedy special sprinkled between records on KRTH.

That's not to say you're wrong, I've heard plenty of jocks whose main skill is back-announcing records. Self included. :unsure:
 
NickD said:
I live in Las Vegas and I listen to KJUL 104.7 most of the time. I have it playing on a radio at home and it’s usually on when I’m in the car by myself.
They almost went off the air last year. They went silent for just shy of a month. Then came back with an updated playlist without Barry Manilow, Neil Diamond, Carpenters, Andy Williams, etc. They still don’t play very many songs from this millennium which I like. Only one or two songs an hour from post-2000. They play the soft AC hits mainly of the 80s and 90s with some 70s.

Kool 102.3 is owned by the same owner as KJUL. They’re an oldies station playing mainly 60s and 70s with some 50s and 80s.

There’s another station in Vegas which targets an even older audience: KIYQ 107.1. There you’ll hear the standards and the artists that made Las Vegas famous like Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Tom Jones, etc. Music that KJUL used to play. I’d say that they target the 70+ demographic. It’s an LPFM so the owner is running it as a labor of love. Unfortunately their audience is literally dying off and I can’t see many people listening to it 10 years from now.

Edit: As I was posting this, I just heard a song by the Carpenters on KJUL.
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The owner of KIYQ is obsessed with conspiracy theories, There are talk shows about "Who really killed JFK, top secret government cover-ups, Area 51, pro gun, militia stuff", when they're not playing Frank Sinatra. This is a station that would make Alex Jones proud, but not Frank. Of course their tiny signal makes even hearing them very difficult. They have 100 watts from a very short antenna on the roof of strip mall. The last time I was in Vegas, I heard a nostalgic show about untold stories of mobsters in Las Vegas. If you like Vegas history this is the go to place. The signal was pretty much gone only two miles from that strip mall. When they first went on the air, the antenna was at the top of the Stratosphere. They probably couldn't afford what it cost to keep it up there
 
seatownmedia said:
Radio is not dead but it is to young folks who want to get in. Very difficult. I am sure a few will break through but the days of a good voice and and some good aircheck are over. Stations simply don’t care about those skills today. They want content but great voices really don’t matter anymore.
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You need to have talent that involves more than talking up a vocal, or witty banter with an occasional phone caller. 'Great pipes' haven't been a qualification for radio talent in years. One needs look no farther than Ryan Seacrest, for what a radio star looks like. It's how you related to the audience, are perceived on social media, what connections you have with other stars and influencers, Could you hold your own on the radio in a way that drives listeners, without music? That's today's radio stars.
 
NickD said:
I live in Las Vegas and I listen to KJUL 104.7 most of the time. I have it playing on a radio at home and it’s usually on when I’m in the car by myself.
They almost went off the air last year. They went silent for just shy of a month. Then came back with an updated playlist without Barry Manilow, Neil Diamond, Carpenters, Andy Williams, etc. They still don’t play very many songs from this millennium which I like. Only one or two songs an hour from post-2000. They play the soft AC hits mainly of the 80s and 90s with some 70s.

Kool 102.3 is owned by the same owner as KJUL. They’re an oldies station playing mainly 60s and 70s with some 50s and 80s.

There’s another station in Vegas which targets an even older audience: KIYQ 107.1. There you’ll hear the standards and the artists that made Las Vegas famous like Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Tom Jones, etc. Music that KJUL used to play. I’d say that they target the 70+ demographic. It’s an LPFM so the owner is running it as a labor of love. Unfortunately their audience is literally dying off and I can’t see many people listening to it 10 years from now.

Edit: As I was posting this, I just heard a song by the Carpenters on KJUL.
Click to expand...
I was never able to understand what former listeners of WEZV Myrtle Beach SC thought was so great about this station. I tried it and couldn't really tell it was any different from the new WEZV (at that time). Later WEZV became more like WDUV and WFEZ but these days, after about a year with a mainstream AC format, it's actually more conservative than those two successful stations. There are plenty of retired people, but I can't imagine them actually liking some of the songs.

A station I haven't mentioned is 63 Big WAYS suburban Charlotte NC. It has a great signal (daytime; nights are a different matter and the station probably doesn't even reach Charlotte) because it's on the left side of the dial. All the songs are from the 50s and 60s and some of the songs are even real standards, though there aren't that many. A lot of songs were played on standards radio when it still was standards radio, but there is a lot of rock and roll too. Each hour has a sponsor, and there are occasional commercials. Someone from the station said it didn't make a lot of money, but those who worked there loved the music. The owner has a full-power classic hits FM which leans rock.
 
KilowattKat said:
The owner of KIYQ is obsessed with conspiracy theories, There are talk shows about "Who really killed JFK, top secret government cover-ups, Area 51, pro gun, militia stuff", when they're not playing Frank Sinatra. This is a station that would make Alex Jones proud, but not Frank. Of course their tiny signal makes even hearing them very difficult. They have 100 watts from a very short antenna on the roof of strip mall. The last time I was in Vegas, I heard a nostalgic show about untold stories of mobsters in Las Vegas. If you like Vegas history this is the go to place. The signal was pretty much gone only two miles from that strip mall. When they first went on the air, the antenna was at the top of the Stratosphere. They probably couldn't afford what it cost to keep it up there
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KIYQ was never on the Stratosphere
 
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